ABSTRACT Comprehensive understanding of the pre-Paleogene kinematic evolution of the North American Cordillera in the context of evolving global plate interactions must begin with an understanding of the complex Late Cretaceous–early Eocene structural geometry and evolution of the northwestern Cordillera of Alaska, United States, and Yukon, Canada. Here, I present a kinematic model of the region that shows how regional strike-slip fault systems, including plate-boundary transform faults, interacted with each other, and with north-striking oroclinal folds and fold-and-thrust belts, which formed progressively during coeval shortening between Eurasia and North America. These Late Cretaceous–early Eocene interactions are manifestations of the plate reorganizations in the Pacific and Atlantic-Arctic regions that took place at that time, and that led to rifting and seafloor spreading within the globe-encircling Eurasian–North American plate and to the formation of transform-dominant North American–Pacific (sensu lato) and possibly North American–Arctic plate boundaries.

The Mesozoic and Paleogene pelagic carbonate rocks of the Northern Apennines have proved to be a fertile source for paleomagnetic research. Investigations of the magnetic properties of the Scaglia limestones illuminated the processes by which they were magnetized. Their directions of remanent magnetization contributed to an understanding of the geodynamic history of Adria as a promontory of the African plate and have been used to refine the Mesozoic part of the African polar wander path. Magnetic stratigraphy in the Umbrian sequence and in similar facies in the southern Alps has established an independent record of geomagnetic polarity history since the Middle Jurassic. Correlation with the record derived from interpretation of oceanic magnetic anomalies mutually confirmed the global nature of the polarity history. This enabled the dating of plate motions and the development of a geomagnetic polarity time scale for the late Mesozoic and Cenozoic.